...to the Republican candidates running for the House and Senate. I think this may be a good strategy up to a point. If the Republicans begin to adapt to the ads with a message of their own, the Democrats should be ready to change the attack. For example, right now, most of the Democratic ads show the Republican candidates with Mr Bush and they show specifically how many times they have voted with Bush. I suspect this may be very successful for a while. The Democrats should run them so long as they prove to be successful. If the ads begin to lose momentum, they should have some new ads ready to go. My suggestion would be that they have some ads about the "privatization" of Social Security and how these Republicans will vote with Mr Bush to destroy the Social Security system as we now know it. Make them take a stand on Social Security or else disavow support for Mr Bush's plan. That would be my suggestion.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/17/us/politics/17ads.html?_r=1&oref=slogin <snip>
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 — From Rhode Island to New Mexico, from Connecticut to Tennessee, President Bush is emerging as the marquee name in this fall’s Congressional elections — courtesy not of his Republican Party but of the Democrats.
A review of dozens of campaign commercials finds that Mr. Bush has become the star of the Democrats’ advertisement war this fall. He is pictured standing alone and next to Republican senators and members of Congress, his name intoned by ominous-sounding announcers. Republican candidates are damned in the advertisements by the number of times they have voted with Mr. Bush in Congress.
<snip>
There is Mr. Bush on television screens in Colorado, in an advertisement urging the election of Angie Paccione, a Democrat, leaning over to plant a big kiss on the forehead of Representative Marilyn Musgrave, a Republican.
There is Mr. Bush on the television screens in New Mexico, standing on a stage shoulder-to-shoulder with Representative Heather A. Wilson, a Republican struggling to keep her seat. “Heather Wilson supports George Bush on the war in Iraq with no questions asked,” the announcer says, in an advertisement for Patricia Madrid, the Democrat.
...more